Box Score
BOSTON, Mass.—Senior Olivia Murphy (Canton, Mass.) set the program-record for career made field goals and just missed out on a double-double on Senior Day, but it wasn't enough in a 64-56 loss against Little East Conference Regular Season Champion Eastern Connecticut State University.
THE BASICS
Eastern Connecticut State 64, UMass Boston 56
(UMass Boston 14-11, Little East 6-8)
(Eastern Connecticut State 19-6, Little East 11-3)
HOW IT HAPPENED
Eastern Connecticut's Jordyn Nappi and Julia DePoi combined to knock down all nine of the Warriors' 3-pointers and combined for 39 points, to spoil Murphy's Senior Day.
Murphy, who will go down as the winningest player in program history (70-45), set the career mark for made field goals with her first made of the basket of the game. She knocked down a layup at 4:47 of the first quarter, to pass Linda Caruso ('97) for the career record with 610 for her career.
On the day, Murphy finished with eight points and a game-high 12 rebounds. For her career, she sits with 1,509 points and 1,098 rebounds-both of which rank third in program history.
Sophomore Grace Geary (Falmouth, Mass.) led the Beacons in the loss, as she finished with 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting and added a game-high five assists. Fellow sophomore Raven Kelsey (Boston, Mass.) filled the score sheet with eight points, six rebounds and two assists.
The LEC Regular Season Champions relied heavily on their starting five, as the five starters recorded all 64 points on the day for the Warriors. Nappi ended the day with 21 points on four 3-pointers, while DePoi knocked down five threes and totaled 18 points and eight boards. Down low, Erin Brooks registered 14 points and six boards and Jill Ritrosky nearly had a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds.
Saturday's game was a back-and-forth, low-scoring affair until the fourth quarter. The two teams traded 15 leads and had four ties in the first three quarters, with the two teams separated by two possessions or less for the majority of the 30 minutes.
Eastern used an 8-0 run over the final five minutes of the first quarter to grab a 12-5 lead, but Katie Mathieu's (Coventry, Conn.) layup with two seconds left cut the deficit to five (12-7) after one quarter.
The Beacons used an 8-2 run to grab the lead midway through the second quarter, but Eastern would grab the lead right back at 19-15 thanks to a 5-0 run. UMass Boston answered right back to close out the half, as Geary scored four consecutive points to give UMass Boston a slim 21-19 halftime lead.
It was more of the same in the third quarter, as the Warriors used a late 6-2 run late in the stanza to grab a 35-32 leading heading into the fourth.
Neither side could miss in the fourth quarter, as the Warriors shot 63.6 percent (7-of-11) and hit all five of their 3-point attempts, while the Beacons knocked down 8-of-14 (57.1 percent) of their looks and hit 2-of-5 (40 percent) of their 3-point shots.
The Beacons opened the quarter with a 7-3 spurt to grab a 39-38 lead, thanks to a 3-pointer from Ariana Rivera (Burlington, Mass.) and a pair of layups from Geary. The teams would trade the lead twice more and add a tie over the next 3:30, as UMass Boston earned their largest lead of the game at 48-45 with 5:13 left.
Eastern wouldn't back down though, as Ritrosky hit two free throws and Nappi knocked down a 3-pointer to grab the lead at 50-48 with 4:19 left. UMass Boston would cut the deficit to two on two occasions and trailed by just three with 2:25 left, but Eastern knocked down 5-of-6 free throws down the stretch and Victoria Pfohl hit a key 2-pointer to seal the win.
BY THE NUMBERS
- With the win, Eastern Connecticut improved to 61-9 all-time against the Beacons and earned their seventh-straight win against UMass Boston.
- UMass Boston earned a 38-22 advantage in points in the paint and a 22-0 edge in bench points.
- The Beacons' 14 turnovers marked their third-lowest output of the season.
- Eastern's nine made field-goals matched their season-high, as the Warriors came in shooting a league-worst 26 percent from distance.
WHO'S NEXT
With their loss and UMass Dartmouth's win, the Beacons finish the season in sixth-place in the Little East Conference. The sixth-seeded Beacons will travel to third-seeded Western Connecticut State University on Tuesday night at a time to be announced.
